President Bush participates in a photo opportunity with, l-r, Former President George H.W. Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, POTUS, Former President William J. Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office at the White House. Wednesday, January 7, 2009 (Mary F. Calvert / The Washington Times)

The Economic Crisis Continues: Obama says in his latest press conference (we’ve lost count), basically, “You’ve got to spend money to make money.” The stimulus plan is go.

UN Halts Gaza Aid. The Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have prevented the United Nations from delivering aid to the area—a driver of a United Nations truck was killed while trying to deliver supplies. As a result, the UN is ceasing its assistance.

Lunchin’ Presidents: Hopefully he got advice beyond rug selection from former President Bill Clinton yesterday at the historic meeting of once-and-future Prezzies, Bill, George Sr., George Jr., Jimmy, and Barry.

No Clinton Sequel: Sen. Tom Daschle ain’t going to let the health care situation crash and burn the way it did in the early 90s when then-First Lady Hillary had a go at reform. Rumored pick for the Surgeon General, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta might be the secret weapon he needs.

Every man is a critic until he gets sued. A chiropractor in San Francisco is suing a user on the city’s Yelp site, who posted a long negative review for libel and invasion of privacy. If the back doc wins, the case could have major repercussions for the unhinged, often negative, free speech found on message boards worldwide.

Obama’s addicted.…To his CrackBerry. The President-Elect is still fighting to keep his beloved phone, basically telling CNBC that the Secret Service are going to have to pry it out of his hands.

Now that’s what I call a snow bunny! Or a snow . . . Honey! Stop scaring the wildlife! One unlucky skier hopped on a chairlift at Colorado’s Vail Resort and fell overboard. His ski got caught in the lift, leaving him dangling with his pants down for seven excruciatingly cold and embarrassing minutes. (Psst . . . Be thorough. Click through all of the photos for the full story.)

Time-outs? In war? The fighting in Gaza is still underway (12 days later!) . . . minus a three hour ”time-out” period from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. this afternoon when Israel hit the sidelines so Gaza could catch its breath. Israel has agreed to cease fire every other day during the same three-hour time period to give humanitarian aid an opportunity to clean up the opposition. It’s all in the name of sportsmanlike conduct. You know.

Obama will address our economic woe, woe, woes! tomorrow. The president-elect will give a “major speech” tomorrow at 11 a.m. (EST) to call for quick action on his “American Recovery and Investment Plan,” which is anticipated to save or create over three million jobs. Obama announced today that he has appointed Nancy Killefer as his chief performance officer, which he claims is “one of the most important” appointments he’s made yet. Killefer will be responsible for kicking budgetary ass and taking names up in Washington—to which my inner Gwen Stefani says: “Get it, girl. Get it, get it, girl. To the front, to the side, to the back” and don’t let ‘em hide!

iTunes will no longer compete with the 99 cents store. Beginning in April, iTunes will begin pricing its music according to popularity. The latest and greatest songs will be priced at $1.29, and oldies but goodies will go on clearance at 69 cents a pop. In addition, Apple will remove anticopying restrictions from its music so listeners don’t have to use an iPod to move and groove to their fave downloads. Could this be an end to the iMonopoly?

Uh, the Wicked Witch ain’t dead. When NBC’s “Today Show” cut Ann Coulter out of its lineup yesterday, the woman hopped on her broom and had a hissy all over town. When she returned to get her mug on the show this morning, Matt Lauer explained that they shot her down yesterday because Tony Blair suddenly made himself available. “And I think that’s a good switch,” he added. And I think Matt Lauer is my new favorite person.

If you like this piece, you might want to consider picking up Sung’s first novel, Everything Asian, when it’s published this April from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. It’s about a young Korean immigrant and his family as they adjust to life in suburban New Jersey.

I actually received an advance copy of Everything Asian a little while back, but I have to admit, it’s been sitting in a large, growing stack of books I’ve been meaning to read. Now I’m really looking forward to reading it.

This post originally appeared on the Angry Asian Man blog.

Oh man. We knew it was coming. I don’t know how they’ve done it, considering the event at the end of the first movie, but they have gone ahead and made a sequel to Crank. You know, the ridiculous movie where Jason Statham plays a guy who is injected with a toxic “Chinese cocktail” that will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline pumping? Yeah.

I first heard about this when it was announced last year that our favorite weirdo Bai Ling has a role in the movie. Automatically, that’s a strike against it. But wait, here’s the synopsis, according to IMDb: “Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.”

That’s right, baby. Another ridiculous premise and more Chinese mobsters! What is it with Jason Statham and Asian gangsters? Seriously. Transporters, Crank, War… now this. And is it just me, or does he essentially play the same guy in every movie he’s in?

Watch the uncensored, not-safe-for-work, for-restricted-audiences-only trailer for Crank 2: High Voltage here. Lots of Asian gangsters, thugs and hookers up in there. The movie opens in theaters in April. I guarantee you won’t see me standing in line for this one.

UPDATE: Oh yeah. Word has it, none other than Kwai Chang Caine himself, David Carradine has a cameo rocking the yellowface in Crank 2 as the has-been Chinese mobster who steals Chelios’ heart. Wow. This movie is really going there, and they just don’t care.

This post originally appeared on the Angry Asian Man blog.

Won’t see ya and wouldn’t want to be ya! The captain of the Republican Party’s cheerleading team was reportedly D-I-S-S-E-D by NBC’s “Today Show” when the morning program gave her the boot. Coulter was supposed to grace everyone with her presence this morning to promote her new self-titled book, Guilty, but NBC screwed on its thinking cap and high-kicked her out of the line-up. In the book, Coulter refers to President-elect Obama as “B. Hussein Obama.” [Insert totally justified ad hominem attack on Coulter here.]

U.N. school takes the hit from Israeli shelling. A United Nations school located in a Gaza refugee camp took the brunt of an Israeli attack today, resulting in at least 30 deaths. The school was converted into an emergency shelter (er . . . helter-skelter?) station when the fighting began 11 days ago. The director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, John Ging, reports that “there is nowhere safe in Gaza.” European envoys are urging for a cease-fire, but the fighting continues. (Want to know more? Wrap your mind around this.)

The new carcinogen on the block: Third-hand smoke. OK, OK, so you light up. Just every once in a while. Alcohol is usually involved. First-hand smoke is definitely killer, but you’re a social smoker. No biggie. And the second-hand smoke won’t harm others if they hold their breath and keep a safe distance for the next five minutes. So why should you feel guilty? Experts say that foul-smelling funk that weaves itself into the fabrics of your clothing and around the strands of your hair are: (cue Britney Spears) ”Too high, can’t come down. Losin’ my head, spinning ’round and ’round. Do you feel me now?” TOXIC!

The number of retail stores that closed in 2008? (Think: SIX DIGITS PEOPLE!) And the “Going Out of Business” sales aren’t on the decline either. Tens of thousands of more retailers are expected to close up shop during the first half of this year. The holiday shopping season didn’t provide the necessary boost to keep everyone afloat–with one exception. Good ol’ Wal-Mart is sittin’ perty with an anticipated 2.8 percent increase in sales this past December. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Come out, come out, wherever you are! Who spiked the eggnog with hallucinogens at the Bush family’s holiday party? Who dunnit? C’mon. Make yourself known.

Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken, with his wife Frannie at his side, speaks to members of the media outside his home in Minneapolis after Minnesota

More Obama Drama: Hot on the heels of Gov. Richardson’s dropping out from consideration for his cabinet post, Obama has another mini-scandal on his hands with the selection of Leon Panetta, another Clintonite and former congressman and White House chief of staff, heading up the CIA.

Banana Republic, anyone? Does anyone remember the days when we had elections and there was a winner, pure and simple? It’s been a while? We’ve got not one, but two, up-in-the-air Senators, with Al Franken, after being declared the winner in Minnesota by the canvassing board (225 votes!), is likely to be challenged by Republicans; his fellow midwesterner, Roland Burris, the poor dude “apppointed” by disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevitch, is being blocked by Congress from being seated.

Israel v. Palestine, the 1000th Sequel Surprise, there’s still fighting going on in the Mideast. In today’s atrocities, 30 were killed in a Gaza school. Which means that Hamas is fighting mad, and vows revenge. Yeah, this should turn out well. As Adam Sandler’s mother says in movie, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, “They’ve only been fighting 2,000 years, it can’t last much longer.”

Gas prices are climbing again. Thanks to a standoff between Russia and the Ukraine, oil output is diminished, with the price-per-barrel climbing to $50. The disruption is effecting Europe, including Italy and Austria.

Another billionaire bites the dust. Adolph Merckle decided he would rather not live than deal with the mess of the economic crisis. A bad investiment in Volkwagen shares sent Merckle in a downward spiral; he lost “millions of dollars” and a likely breakup of his business.

PHOTO BY: fstop45, all rights reserved

As a part of my series on legendary hip-hop writers/journalists, I present a conversation with my bro Bonz Malone. It is still hard to believe that we have been friends for over twenty years. Going way back to the early days when hip-hop culture was moving from a New York City novelty to a worldwide industry, me and Bonz met at a Profile Records party for long-forgotten rapper L.A. Star. At that time there were only a few Black writers documenting this musical terrain (including Nelson George, Greg Tate and Harry Allen), but Bonz was by far the boldest in terms of style.

Though I had read his poetic street rants (at the time, Malone wrote everything in his own special brand of ghetto phonetics) of this Brooklyn-based wild boy in the pages of Spin and the Village Voice, I had no idea he was such a passionate soul. Like a combination of Cameron Crowe (his youthfulness) and Lester Bangs (unafraid of the edge), the man-child who had once tagged trains and worked for a crack cocaine crew had kicked in the door of music criticism and refused to leave.

While in real life, writers like myself romanticized the dark side of street life, Bonz not only lived it but he put it into his work. Of course, that gritty bravado sometimes made him a little scary to be around, but we were all a little richer for the experience.

Everybody that was around in those early days has a Bonz Malone story; in the rap-set world that we travel in, more than a few have even morphed into urban legends that rival only alligators in the sewer. There was Bonz throwing M-80s after a Third Bass concert at the Beacon, there was Bonz handing in stories handwritten on loose-leaf, there was Bonz bombing the system one day, and partying with Russell Simmons the next.

A ghettocentric renaissance man who’d written wonderful articles, guest-starred in acclaimed films (Slam) and signed Mobb Deep to their first deal, Bonz Malone had put a certified stamp on truthfulness on every endeavor. In Malone’s life and work, the main thing one could count on was the brilliance of his unpredictability to reveal the essence of his subject.

***

MG: First, where did the name Bonz come from?

Bonz: Well, there were two meanings. The first being that ‘bonz’ represented the skeletons in the closet. You know, those things we had done in the past. I would tell people, if you open my coffin a hundred years from now, that’s what you will see, bones. That’s the realest shit. So, when I started writing graffiti, that was the name I chose.

MG: What was the other meaning?

Bonz: (laughs) It also stood for Black Fonz, because I always saw myself as the Fonzie nigga. Henry Winkler was a dope dude. How many Jewish actors you know can play an Italian better than real Italians?

MG: What was your hip-hop experience that made you want to be down?

Bonz: Man, it was the night that “Wild Style” opened in Times Square in 1983. I was 12 years old, and I had to wait for my grandmother to go to sleep so I could sneak out. I put my life on the line, but it was worth it. The theater was so crowded, I had to sit on the stairs. And, the whole movie was in the audience. I saw Grandmaster Caz, Rock Steady, Grandmaster DST and Lee.

MG: I know you wrote graff for years. What was that like?

Bonz: That’s the first element of hip-hop. Man, bombing trains was what I loved to do, that’s who I am. Even today, I have to fight myself not to write on the train. I never did any of those huge masterpieces outside the train, but I tagged in the train. Once we moved to Brooklyn, I was doing the 2’s and 5’s. Those trains went through the South Bronx, so people knew my name.

MG: You went from writing on walls to typing on paper. Talk about that transition?

Bonz: I started writing for the high school newspaper and Bill Adler, who was then the publicist at Def Jam, saw my clips and hooked me up with Spin magazine. The first professional piece I wrote was a review was a review of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising.

One of the things that made me want to write for print was reading Jimmy Breslin in The Daily News, because I didn’t like the way he wrote about the Black community in New York City. Breslin stirred a lot of racial shit in his columns, and it was obvious he knew nothing about Black people. Through my writings, I wanted people to know who we were and the beauty that hip-hop represented.

MG: Were you paying attention to other hip-hop writers of that period?

Bonz: I was aware of the others like you and Harry Allen, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was working with John Leland and Joe Levy, and both of those guys taught me a lot. I considered my work to be graffiti writing in print. They later gave me a column (Radio Graffiti), but it was real sporadic because I kept getting locked-up. Every magazine I’ve written for—Spin, The Source, Vibe—have all bailed me out of jail at one time or another.

MG: What is your favorite album from that golden period?

Bonz: To me, the number one hip-hop album is Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988). When that fucking record dropped, I thought the end of the world was coming. I’ve worn gray and black everyday. The first time I heard that record, I almost cried. Nothing made today could go up against that one disc. Nothing.

MG: Didn’t you and Chuck D. get into a little thing back then.

Bonz: Yeah, because he dissed me for no reason. He called me a “house nigger,” because I wrote for a white magazine. Hell, there weren’t any real hip-hop magazines out then, but he was mad because I was writing about rap in a rock magazine. We talked about it later, and now we have nothing but respect for one another.

MG: At one time rappers talked the world, now they just talk about themselves.

Bonz: You’re so right.

MG: After your Spin days, you went over to The Source. People might not realize it now, but that was once a great magazine.

Bonz: Originally The Source was a college fanzine, but when they decided to move to New York and become a glossy, they contacted me over at Spin. I wrote a Queen Latifah cover story, I wrote a Tribe Called Quest cover story and I wrote the first Biggie story. We didn’t make much money, but we sure got a lot of free t-shirts.

MG: Talk a little about your time as rap A&R at Island Records under Chris Blackwell.

Bonz: That was in the early ‘90s. I almost signed Biggie. We lived two blocks away from each other. I had heard his demo around the same time Puff was trying to sign him. Biggie told me if I won a craps game, he would sign with Island instead. We shot dice on the roof of Island Records for three hours, but I lost.

MG: But, you did sign Mobb Deep.

Bonz: My man Matty C. ran the “Unsigned Hype” column at The Source. He played their tape for me, and in the first eight seconds, I wanted them. Nobody was making that kind of music except NWA. Nas hadn’t even come out yet. To me, Mobb Deep was the NWA of the East Coast.

MG: I know you worked for and partied with Russell Simmons years ago. Any insights?

Bonz: I liked Russell better when he was broke. He was cool and hungry, and not so self-absorbed. Russell has done many things for many people, but I’ve seen him become an asshole.

MG: What are some of the stories you’ve written that stand out?

Bonz: I covered the 1987 Grammy Awards for Spin; when Millie Vanilli won for Best New Artist, I almost got thrown out for screaming, ‘Ya’ll can’t even sing!’ as they were walking-up to the podium. Later, when I was writing the story, I said Dick Clark’s teeth were made of wood. As far as the rap side, I guess it was going to the studio to interview De La Soul, because they gave me a copy of 3 Feet… before it came out. At that time, something like that meant a lot.

MG: I know you kick-started your acting career with a part in Slam (1998).

Bonz: Yeah, I had been friends with Marc Levine for a long time. Originally, I was supposed to star in that movie, but, once again, I was in jail. I had introduced Marc to Saul Williams, so he got the lead instead. I wasn’t, mad, because I still got another part in the movie. That film changed our lives.

MG: What do you think about hip-hop culture today?

Bonz: Rap music is a joke these days. It’s not hip-hop culture, its rap life. Rap life is more concerned with what it can get for itself, not what it can contribute. These niggas just want to make money, but they have very little to offer. I come from an era when rappers didn’t even curse, now you got all these cats cussing instead of rhyming.

SS: What about hip-hop writing?

Bonz: I have respect for everybody, but it was always my thing to be the best writer there was. I feel like I blasted the door open for a lot of people. A lot of writers today barely know there history, while other so-called ghetto lit writers like Relentless Aaron are just using writing as a hustle.

To paraphrase (graffiti artist) Iz the Wiz, a writer is somebody you want to write with or fight with; those words are burned into my heart.

This originally appeared at Michael Gonzales’s blog. ]]> http://www.popandpolitics.com/2009/01/05/riffs-revolutions/feed/ http://www.popandpolitics.com/2009/01/05/riffs-revolutions/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/popandpolitics/~3/504071635/ http://www.popandpolitics.com/2009/01/05/cheap-thrills-musings-on-interracial-relationships/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:49:10 +0000 ryan barrett http://www.popandpolitics.com/?p=10533 I noticed a funny thing while visiting my family in D.C. for Christmas. Simply put: every female in the house (my mom and aunt, who are African-American, and me and my cousin, who are interracial) was either involved with or married to a White man.

Hmm…
That’s curious.

The truth is, the topic of interracial dating is always bubbling in the back of my mind. I went out on a limb and wrote a post about it some time ago on this blog, which got me into some deep water with a few of my readers (a disagreement that I haven’t fully resolved in my mind).

But just recently, the issue resurfaced during a conversation I had with a fellow blogger (a White male) about how personal Obama’s candidacy was to many Americans. I know, I know… interracial relationships? Obama? The two are linked, sure, but they don’t really go together. Which is what made the conversation so poignant.

My friend asked me whether or not Obama was well liked among the African-American side of my family.

Before that point, I had never thought of it as strange at all. But maybe it is. And after that, a troubling question began creeping into my mind: do some Black women hold an interracial relationship double standard?

Most Black women who I am close with approve of, and even cheer on, a Black female/White male interracial relationship. But one that’s the other way around evokes a feeling far less warm and fuzzy. For example, if Obama had been married to a White woman… eek. I’m sure we wouldn’t have been as quick to embrace him (and actually, I’ve talked with men and women of every color about this hypothetical situation, all of whom expressed a similar “cringe”—perhaps a topic for a different post).

I’ve been trying to figure out WHY this is for some time. Talking with my family has helped a bit. My aunt, who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s during Jim Crow, gave me this bit of insight:

I also spoke with my cousin a bit. She grew up in D.C. as well, only during the 80’s. She hung out with and dated Black guys, but oftentimes found that many of them were looking for something “not quite her”: long nails, thin straight hair, etc. Which is the façade that most of her female cohorts put on. But she wasn’t interested in pretending, and, interestingly, discovered that the few White guys she dated were much more eager to accept her as she was—thick bushy hair and all.

So what does this all have to do with Obama’s marriage to Michelle? He’s African-American, she’s African-American—no interracial relationship there.  So why was she the reason my family members so embraced his candidacy?

Well, it’s this—a simple statement voiced by my cousin at the end of our conversation that slid all the pieces in place:

“I guess we just love men who really love Black women.”

Wow. The conversation never had anything to do with men (of any color) and everything to do with women.  Black women.

So maybe we do hold a seemingly illogical but deeply personal double standard—one rooted in experiences that go back decades. From hearing about my grandmother’s experiences as a dark-skinned Black woman in the 30’s and 40’s to my aunt’s to my cousin’s to mine, I’ve grown an intense fondness for any man who appreciates a brown-skinned lady…

…and I’m half-White. Go figure.

This originally appeared on Ryan Barrett’s blog.

…what a difference half a century makes.

____________

This post originally appeared on Ryan Barrett’s blog.

This just in: Adding to the media meltdown, my former alma mater, the Village Voice, just laid off three more in editorial. [Full disclosure, I was laid off myself for "matters of taste" in 2007]. Among those laid off is Nat Hentoff, who’s been at the paper since 1958, writing about jazz, and later, civil liberties in his weekly long-running column. Fashion writer Lynn Yaeger, who has worked with the paper over 15 30 years, starting in classifieds, before moving into editorial, was laid off, along with staff writer Chloe Hilliard, who was hired under the current editor, Tony Ortega in 2007. We know, we keep saying this, but we continue to be amazed that there is anyone left to lay off.

Nat Hentoff’s Greatest Hits Compilation.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer sued Santa and won. Check out the parody column at the Globe and Mail. It’s a cautionary tale about discrimination, or rather a roast on political correctness…

Feliz ‘dinejad! says National Review Online’s Mark Steyn. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the “alternative Christmas message” on BBC 4 this year. Here’s the story and the full text of Ahmadinejad’s message, and here’s the response from NRO’s Michael Rubin.

We’re safer since 9/11 because of the policies of the Bush Administration, writes Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in a Washington Times op-ed. John Hinderaker at Power Line agrees, but places less emphasis on airport and border security and more on Bush’s aggressiveness overseas. Hinderaker adds that he hopes the Obama Administration realizes we need to stay aggressive. But how the president-elect will lead is still a big question mark.

Huffington’s read on the economic crisis is wrong, argues David Harsanyi at RealClearPolitics. In a recent post on the same site, Arianna Huffington wrote that laissez-faire capitalism is dead, but Harsanyi rebuts, pointing out that federal regulation has actually grown during the Bush years. Harsanyi decries leftist scare tactics and argues we shouldn’t use a temporary recession to make foundational changes to the economy.

Obama shouldn’t go after the Bush Administration for war crimes, writes Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call. With “Bush haters” calling for investigations into war crimes related to the global war on terror, “Obama should make it clear right now that he opposes such action,” Kondracke writes. Such calls are a sign of “political vengeance” rather than truth-seeking, and a probe would disrupt national unity and, more importantly, morale within the intelligence community during wartime. Putting a stop to such talk now, Obama would also prevent the “unseemly” possibility that Bush blanket pardons everyone involved in the GWOT on his way out.

Environmental groups and the Navy reached an agreement over whales and sonar. Separate from a case in which the Supreme Court ruled the Navy could not be unduly required to protect whales, this case contends that sonar is dangerous to whales and other marine animals around the globe and brings a partial victory to both sides.

As Israeli forces step up their assaults on Hamas, Obama remains relatively quiet. The New York Times reports that the President-elect is deferring to President Bush, but notes that Obama’s public comments on the recent escalation in the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict represent a near-endorsement of Israel’s air strikes.

Blago’s attorney plans to use an Obama report to vindicate the scandal-ridden Illinois governor. Barack Obama released an internal report last week showing he and Governor Rod Blagojevich had not schemed to fill the President-elect’s vacant Senate seat. Now the attorney will submit it as evidence to the courts. Of course, even if it clears Obama of any suspicion, Blago’s still in hot water.

First Lady Laura Bush defends her husband’s presidency and talks about women’s rights in Afghanistan and Iraq. She appeared on Fox News Sunday this week.

Republicans quarrel over a song distributed by one of their own: “Barack the Magic Negro.” Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chair of the Republican National Committee, mailed a holiday CD including the above-named song, prompting a mixed reaction from his rivals for the position, and sparking a public discussion over media sensitivity to race as the nation prepares to inaugurate its first black president. One of the writers of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” the tune to which the song is played, responded via the Huffington Post.

The overall murder rate is dropping, but black teens are killing more, according to a report released today by a criminal justice professor at Northwestern University. The numbers diverge along racial lines for juveniles aged 14-17, with hardly an increase in the murder rate for whites but a 34 percent increase for blacks—not good news for anyone.

Wireless carriers are bracing for a storm on Inauguration Day. It will be the first presidential inauguration in which mobile phones are so ubiquitous, the Los Angeles Times reports. With people expected to call friends, send text messages, and snap and send photos by the thousands, carriers are worried so much digital traffic could jam the networks. They’re encouraging people to moderate their usage and offer a few tips for communicating that day.

Mr. Craig’s restroom has lost much of its novelty. Someone apparently offered $5,000 for the restroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport where Senator Larry E. Craig was arrested in 2007 in a sex sting. Now fewer tourists are taking interest in the place and complaints of lewd conduct there have stopped or at least dropped in number. The airport, by the way, refused to sell the bathroom fixture.

With the limited shelf space for holiday movies, the consensus in Hollywood is that one Christmas-themed pic per year is more than enough. However, 2008 brings you an embarrassment of Christmas riches in the form of two craptacular holiday movies that are rehashed, unfunny, and not exactly filled with holiday spirit.

The biggest culprit is inexplicable box office smash Four Christmases. Vince Vaughn and John Favreau play basically the same characters they’ve been playing since Made in 2001. You get the feeling Vaughn and Favreau just made the flick so they could hang out together. After directing Elf in 2003, Favreau must have decided Christmas movies were easy money, and convinced Vaughn to take part in this holiday tradition: Vaughn—who went on to make Fred Claus, 2007’s holiday non-classic—has now starred in two godawful pics two years in a row.

The oddest aspect of Four Christmases is the casting of Reese Witherspoon—she’s supposed to be Vaughn’s long-time girlfriend, but their chemistry is nonexistent. It is difficult to believe a character with type-A personality tics, would be in love with the bullshit-talking Vaughn character.

The film has less to do with Christmas and more to do with being a rip-off of Meet the Parents. Simply substitute some casting choices, subtract a few sight gags, and rotate in a Christmas background, and they’re the same movie. As such, the movie doesn’t hold a sprig of mistletoe, even compared with Favreau’s Elf, and certainly not against any actual holiday classics.

2008’s second place holiday movie, in every respect, is Nothing Like the Holidays, which is like a Puerto Rican take on The Family Stone. If you don’t get enough family fighting, fatal diseases, and special Iraq war moments in your real life, why not watch a Christmas movie about it?

As a movie Nothing Like the Holidays is more interesting than Four Christmases because of the interesting cultural touches, and the actual family moments, like the three siblings ending up in the attic together talking shit about each other— which are genuinely moving and intimate. On the whole, though, Nothing Like the Holidays is too heavy-handed. Nothing will stop a movie from entering the classic holiday cannon like being inescapably depressing.

Don’t go see these movies. TBS will play 24 hours of A Christmas Story. Admit it: it’s the Christmas movie you really want. Pole licking, B.B. guns and angry parents: what’s not to love?

Immersion at and into Children's Book World. Photo by Deborah Stokol.

“I noticed I had developed a fantasy about myself as a writer as opposed to actually doing it, [so] I finally summoned up the bad taste to move to Los Angeles.”

—Leslie Dixon

Perhaps there really is something inherently tacky about Los Angeles.

Whether it’s the mismatched houses, the nouveau riche displays of wealth, or the combination of flip flops with ball gowns, this not-uniform sprawl is undeniably unconventional.

But despite that gaucherie, LA has a pretty long tradition (well, long for a relatively new city) of city-based writers (especially screen writers).

Besides Hollywood’s (questionable) allure, one of the things that draws out-of-towners to this coastal metropolis, or keeps locals from leaving, (besides the weather) is that very bizarre collection of brash traits and “bad taste.”

Despite its “airhead” reputation, LA boasts a diverse population of people who love to read.

It’s no surprise Los Angeles has a slew of Borders and Barnes & Nobles. And I’d be lying if I were to say I wasn’t a fan of these mammoth, warehouse-like book sources, replete with carpets and coffee and couches to lounge on.

But the city’s large, commercial bookstores have a complement in the many independent book shops you’ll find here. LA’s big enough to accommodate those hoping for the practical chain store, with its supply and consistency, as well as the cozy, one-of-a-kind shop.

The Great Gatsby’s Jordan Baker once said she liked “large parties [because] they’re so intimate. At small parties there’s never any privacy.” The same rule goes for wide cities: their size can account for many mounds, crannies, crevasses, variety, and secrets.

Here are five bookshops—small, perhaps even unknown, that grace the city’s many borders.

Children’s Book World

10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd.
LA, CA 90064
310.559.2665
Mon-Fri: 10 a.m.-5:30 a.m.
Sat: 10 a.m.- 5p.m.

It’s hard for me to be objective about this gem. Its enthusiastic employees introduced me to too many of my favorite books growing up. I spent many riveting afternoons there, curled up with an otherwise-impossible-to-find piece of fiction. But even were I not to have the fondest memories of the place, and even were I not to be aware of the fact that those working there know the ins and outs of all pages making their way through the ½ sign door, I would still say anybody with a soft spot for children, or children’s literature, or finger puppets, or story time should make his or her way to this three-room fantastical HQ.

Hennessey + Ingalls

214 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.458.9074
Mon-Sun: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Hennessey + Ingalls is beautiful, a real treat to explore. Just around the corner from the 3rd Street Promenade and another from the Santa Monica bluffs, this shop, like Rizzoli and Taschen, is a monument to art and architecture, and books concerning the two. It takes the specialized bookstore to an elegant and almost old-world level—you can almost see a scribe, a quill, and handwritten sets of parchment maps out of the corner of your eye—while offering intricate cards and handmade journals to purchase on your way out as you leave, inspired to create something lovely of your own.

The Mystery Bookstore

1036-C Broxton Ave.
LA, CA 90024
310.209.0415
Mon-Thurs: 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Fri-Sat: 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sun: 12 p.m.-7 p.m.

An almost subterranean bookstore implausibly hidden between Westwood Village’s Eurochow and a parking lot, the Mystery Bookstores sells books only dealing with mysteries, offering the random and weird in addition to the commercial and easy-to-find. Harried passerbys and sweatershirt-clad students will be surprised at the scope of the Mystery Bookstore’s offerings. They are as likely to find new copies of Agatha Christie and Christopher Pike as they are to see dog-eared copies of Conan Doyle’s works.

Metropolis Books

440 S. Main St.
LA, CA 90013
213.612.0174
Tues-Sat: 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sun: 12 p.m.-5 p.m.
Second Thurs of each month (Art Walk): open until 10 p.m.

Straight out of Fritz Lang’s brain and onto the city’s streets, the title of this bookstore fittingly complements its placement in the bleak, post-apocalyptic setting of LA’s Downtown. True, this little section of Downtown is eclectic and funky, attracting a twenty-something crowd to its SoHo-like blocks, but the rest of the general area is stark and almost forbidding. Nevertheless, there’s something truly poetic—almost reminiscent of a comic book aesthetic—about that desolate countenance. It makes escaping into a warm, spacious, brightly-lit, well-stocked, book-filled zone all the more appealing. And once you’ve stepped inside and inched towards the shelves, you can pull a book down, one that’s either new, or was once lovingly paged through by unknown hands, sit on a stool, and begin to read with your coffee beside you and your knees drawn to your chin.

Village Books

1049 Swarthmore Ave.
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
310.454.4063
Mon-Fri: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Sat-Sun: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

LA hipsters have long and disparagingly called the Pacific Palisades a cultural wasteland, full of people more concerned with tennis and tanning than with literary pursuits. But that characterization is unfair. Not-so-hidden at the end of one of the city-within-a-city’s main street blocks, Swarthmore, lies a small, warmly lit, and very welcoming bookshop by the name of Village Books. Veteran employees bake biscuits once a week and pass them around, the back-end children’s section looks like a full nook or one half of an internal brown gazebo, and the multitude of books makes a visitor wonder how so many volumes can fit into so petite a space. What the store doesn’t carry, its workers can order, and this haven has another marked advantage in its very near proximity to the sea.

Honorable Mentions:

Book Soup

8818 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
310.659.3110
Mon-Sun: 9 a.m.-10 p.m.

Vroman’s Bookstore

695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91101
626.449.5320
Mon-Thurs: 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Fri-Sat: 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sun: 10 a.m.-9 p.m.

Skylight Books

1818 N. Vermont Ave.
LA, CA 90027
323.660.1175
Mon-Sun: 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Portrait of a Bookstore

4360 Tujunga Ave.
Studio City, CA 91604
818.769.3853
Mon-Sat: 9:30 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sun: 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Hi De Ho Comics & Books with Pictures

525 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.394.2820
Wed-Sat: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sun-Tues: 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Obama’s stimulus plan has creeped its way to almost $800 billion. The President-elect is reacting to news of an ever-worsening economy and projections that 3.5 million people could lose their jobs in the next year. Some are fearing the stimulus plan could open the door to Congressional pet projects rather than programs that will really drive economic recovery. Vice President-elect Joe Biden defended the plan with a staid response: only bold moves will rescue the economy.

For what it’s worth, Washington hospitality workers will have jobs. With numerous inauguration events planned, the need for waiters and bartenders is up. Probably no consolation for the actors and artists in Los Angeles who make their living the same way.

Biden and Cheney aren’t getting along as well as Bush and Obama. In a bout of back-and-forth criticism, Biden has called Cheney the most dangerous Vice President in history, and in a Fox News interview (below, about halfway through), Cheney responded by criticizing Biden’s knowledge of the Constitution. Christmas cheer, anyone?

Blago’s “Individual D” revealed, and seeks immunity. There have been no accusations of wrongdoing from the authorities, but businessman Raghuveer P. Nayak has apparently sought legal protection in exchange for cooperating in the ongoing investigation into Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged scheme to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s now-vacant Senate seat. Blago apparently wanted to appoint Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and pressured Nayak to pony up campaign money. The Chicago drama is getting more interesting by the day.

VHS: An Obituary. Before the entertainment industry was panicking over competition from DVD sales, there was the videocassette. It revolutionized the entertainment industry, and this Christmas will likely be the last one you’ll be able to find one anywhere other than a 99-cent store, as the L.A. Times reports. So, a big THANK YOU to VHS for ushering in the era of movies-on-demand and personal movie libraries. I wonder how long Blu-ray will last.

In preparation for Christmas, an homage to the Man Behind the Story. If you haven’t seen A Christmas Story, you can catch it during the annual marathon on Dec. 25. For now, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Jean Shepherd, the writer, radio personality and narrator from the movie who wrote the stories on which the film was based.

Is “Palin-ized” the hot political put-down? Politicians have said New York Senate candidate Caroline Kennedy is “Sarah Palin-ized” because of the way she and her team are handling the media, including asking reporters to submit questions in writing first. Somehow Palin has managed to leave a permanent mark on American politics.